The killing of a female Punjab provincial minister on 20 February, 2007,
has sent shock waves throughout the country. The minister was shot dead
by a religious extremist when she was speaking to the local people in
her home town, Gujaranwala.

When the killer was arrested he said to the police that the motive
behind the killing was religious. The minister was not a good Muslim and
had violated the teachings of Islam, which forbids women to take part in
politics. He revealed that he had killed many women and in 1994 had even
tried to kill Pakistani People’s Party chairperson, Benazir Bhutto.

According to the killer, no Muslim female should become a political
leader or minister. His views are shared by many in this Muslim society.
Religious parties and clerics openly campaign against women’s rights.
For them, every woman raising her voice about women’s rights and
equality is ‘Westernised’ and ‘immoral’ and needs to be harshly
punished, up to and including by killing.

This murder, of someone belonging to the ruling party, has exposed the
high-sounding claims of the government that women are safer in Pakistan
than ever before. But according to the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, every two hours one woman in the country is raped and one
woman is gang raped every eight hours. This, say the rights groups, is
probably an under-estimate since so many rapes are still not reported.

There has been a marked increase in the number of incidents of violence
against women. The national and regional media is always full every day
of these horrific crimes and violence against women.

When parliament passed the ‘Women’s Protection Bill, 2006’ in November
of last year, the government made claims that this bill would protect
women in Pakistan and it would also enhance their status in society. The
government spokesmen and officials gave the impression that this law
would bring revolutionary change for women and that violence against
them would decrease.

Contrary experience

But experience has shown contrary results in the last few months. This
is because the ‘Women Protection Bill, 2006’ simply sanctions the
violence of the notorious ‘Hudood Ordinance’. It gives it a cosmetic
‘make-over’ with the aim of making it more palatable to the public at
large. The changes include a reduction in the sentence for the crime of
‘lewd behaviour’ - from a death sentence down to five years imprisonment
and a fine of $200.

But women can still be accused and harshly punished for adultery. The
judges are now left free to decide how to proceed with rape cases.
Previously, under the Hudood Ordinance, a woman had to provide four male
witnesses to confirm that a rape had taken place. Now those four good
Muslim men are no longer required as witnesses!

The new women’s bill still does nothing to ensure the safety of rape
victims nor does it do away with the fact that a woman can be prosecuted
for engaging in consensual sexual relations. It is best described as
‘Hudood Ordinance - the Remix’!

Prior to the implementation of the Hudood laws in 1979, by the barbaric
military dictator Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s penal code did not label sex
outside marriage as a crime. Adultery and pre-marital sex were
considered personal ‘sins’, not matters for the state. According to the
Hudood laws, marital rape is not a crime. This allowed husbands to rape
their wives without punishment. Yet, these same laws make adultery, sex
between unmarried couples and prostitution liable to extremely severe
punishments. The ordinance stipulated that a person could be found
guilty with or without the consent of the other party. This meant that
women were more likely to be convicted than men because there would be
medical evidence.

As already mentioned, if a woman wanted to prove she had been raped, she
had to provide four male witnesses to the crime, all of whom had to be
good Muslims!

This Hudood Ordinance has brought unbearable misery, discrimination and
horrible conditions for women, especially poor rural women. The police,
feudal lords and influential rich people used these laws to cover up
their rape and violence against women. Many domestic workers in the
cities and female agricultural workers in the rural areas were raped and
tortured. Then, when they complained to the police about these crimes,
they themselves would be prosecuted under these laws. Police sided with
rapists and arrested their victims on charges of adultery.

General Musharaf himself has admitted that these laws have been widely
misused and needed to be reviewed. But after months of debate in
parliament and the media, the government only came out with a few minor
amendments to these laws. These amendments will not make a huge
difference, as events have proved.

Nothing changed

This new law has changed nothing as far as poor, rural women living in
feudal and tribal areas are concerned. On 27 January, 2007, a shameful
act took place in the town of Abaro in interior Sindh. Eleven men gang
raped a 16 year old girl and than forced her to walk around the village
naked. Her only ‘crime’ was that she is the cousin of a young man who
dared to marry a girl of an influential family without the consent of
the family. The male members of the family felt insulted about this
marriage and they decided to take revenge. They stormed the house of the
man’s cousin and kidnapped her. Then the 11 men gang raped and severely
tortured the poor teenage girl. They were allegedly taking revenge and
‘restoring the honour’ of the family who, they felt, had been defamed by
a so-called ‘love marriage’. After the gang rape and torture, she was
forced to parade naked in the village. This is how ‘honour’ is restored
in this feudal society!

When the family of the victim complained to the police, they refused to
register a case and even pressurised a doctor not to issue a medical
report of this gang rape. When the news of this horrendous crime was
reported in the media, the government and the Supreme Court intervened
and ordered the local authorities to register a rape case. This is not
the only case highlighted in the media. Four more gang rape cases were
reported last month, including one in a police station!

All the Islamic fundamentalist parties, groups and clerics oppose even
the weak new amendments to the law. They have organised protests, public
rallies and demonstrations against the Women’s Protection Bill. They
insist it will turn Pakistan into a free sex zone and will also protect
prostitution!

Fundamentalism

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country and the introduction
of the Hudood laws in 1979 have actually given a significant boost to
crimes against women. Because these laws protect men and allow women to
be easily prosecuted, there has been a significant increase in
prostitution, rapes, gang rapes, forced ‘naked parades’, domestic and
other violence against women and sexual harassment at work and in
society as a whole.

Women were safer before the introduction of these hateful Hudood laws.
Pakistan was not a ‘free sex zone’ before. In fact, there were fewer
women involved in prostitution before these laws were introduced.
History since 1979 shows that they urgently need to be repealed in order
to begin to improve the status of the women in society.

So women in Pakistan are celebrating another International Women’s Day
under extremely difficult conditions. In the 21st Century, women in
Pakistan are still suffering under the customs and traditions of the
middle ages in many areas of the country. Demanding women’s rights, let
alone exercising them, is still seen as a crime. Even animals are
treated better than female human beings in some parts of the country.

Socialist revolution

The conditions of poor working class women cannot be changed or improved
significantly under capitalism. Feudalism, tribalism and capitalism co-
exist in Pakistan, which has created terrible conditions for working
class and poor rural women. Crimes, violence, and anti-women practices
and traditions cannot be stopped only through laws. The main root causes
of the problems faced by women also need to be addressed. Feudal and
tribal traditions will only end when reactionary feudalism and tribalism
are abolished.

The capitalist class has failed to do away with them and complete the
tasks of transforming Pakistan into a modern developed society. In
neo-colonial countries like Pakistan, only the working class will
complete this task through a socialist revolution. The capitalist class
is not capable of abolishing feudalism and tribalism and establishing a
modern capitalist state. The ‘stages theory’ promoted by Stalinism,
which says that workers and youth have to struggle first for a
democratic capitalist society, builds the illusion that this would bring
a solution. Such ideas offer no way forward for the working class.

To abolish the pernicious and deep-rooted elements of feudalism and
tribalism in our society, it is necessary to abolish the capitalist
system which has strengthened and protected them. The working class is
the only class capable of overthrowing this rotten and reactionary
system.

A fighting programme based on the theory of ‘permanent revolution’,
linking the abolition of feudalism with the struggle for socialism, will
enable the working masses to overcome the evils of both feudal and
capitalist barbarism. This would free women from the brutal repression,
discrimination, exploitation and violence that they suffer in
class-ridden society.

Socialism will guarantee genuine freedom and equality to women. A united
struggle of the working class including male workers as well as women,
youth and poor peasants is necessary to overthrow the present rotten and
reactionary system. The issue of women’s rights and equality is one of
the key issues faced by the working class movement. No struggle for
social change can succeed with one half of the population left out of
the movement. The task of the socialists in Pakistan and world-wide: to
organise women in the struggle for social, economic and political
justice – for socialist change on an international scale.